Electric scooters are well known in the prior art. Typically electric scooters have a bank of batteries which provide power to drive the motor. These batteries must be recharged from time to time. This is typically done by plugging the batteries into an AC power outlet for some period of time to restore the depleted energy. Recharging circuits for electrical scooters, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,996, have been developed for the purpose of uniformly charging batteries. In the aforementioned '996 patent a total of ten 12 volt batteries are provided on the scooter. Due to the weight and volume of so many batteries, scooters may need to develop special frames or the like to support this added weight and volume. U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,768 is directed to a scooter frame which can accommodate ten such 12-volt batteries.
In recent years, there has been considerable interest in placing battery recharging units and battery energy conserving units permanently onboard electric vehicles. U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,532 entitled "Fuel cell/battery hybrid power system for vehicle" exemplifies the use of a fuel cell to recharge a battery in an electric vehicle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,426 discloses the use of regenerative braking to returning energy by back-driving the motor mechanism. However, neither of these references disclose such device in conjunction with an electric scooter.
What is desirable is an electric scooter which has an onboard charging system that recharges batteries, the batteries being used as the principal power source to propel the scooter.